Claim OwnershipIf I'm Being Honest: Straight Talk About Book Publishing & Promotion
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© 2026 If I'm Being Honest: Straight Talk About Book Publishing & Promotion
Description
If I’m Being Honest is a straight-talk podcast about self-publishing and book marketing—created for authors who want realistic expectations and practical advice.
Hosted by Joel Pitney and Sayde Walker, the show explores what it actually takes to publish, promote, and sell books in today’s crowded marketplace. Featuring interviews with successful authors and industry experts, we dig into the wins, the missteps, the numbers, and the uncomfortable truths that rarely get discussed.
If you’re a first-time author (or feeling stuck after publishing), this podcast is here to help you move forward with clarity, confidence, and honesty.
23 Episodes
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The fastest way to stop writing is trying to write perfectly. In this week's episode, Joel and Sayde get real about the gap between the beautiful book in your head and the rough draft you have to put on the page, and why “writing badly” is often the only way to finish a manuscript. We talk through the habits Joel relies on as a professional ghostwriter working on real deadlines: protecting long writing blocks, setting concrete goals like a chapter a week, and separating research and outlinin...
A great podcast interview does not feel like “marketing” at all. It feels like sitting down for coffee and hearing a real person tell the truth behind their work and that is exactly why podcasts have become the new PR for authors, experts, and business owners. We sit down with Michelle Glogovac, the Podcast Matchmaker and author of How to Get on Podcasts, to unpack what actually gets you booked and what gets you ignored. We talk about why long form conversations beat short media hits, how po...
Most book launches don’t fail because the writing is bad. They stall because we treat publishing like a sprint, not a marathon. Joel Pitney sits down with bestselling author and publishing strategist Jane Tabachnick to get painfully honest about what it actually takes to build an author platform that lasts, and why so many authors “quiet quit” about 60 days after launch when the instant-results fantasy wears off. We dig into the long-game mindset that keeps a book alive for years, espe...
In this week's episode of If I'm Being Honest, we sit down with USA Today bestselling author Russell Nohelty, founder of Hapitalist, to have a frank, unfiltered conversation about why writers and authors should start thinking outside the box when it comes to their careers. It starts with analyzing your publishing pathways, defining independence, and discovering that optionality is the real superpower in modern book publishing. We get specific about the stuff that actually protects a long-ter...
A literary agent tells you your book is “interesting” but they don’t know where it belongs on a shelf. Do you revise it into something safer, or do you publish the thing you actually meant to write? Host Sayde Walker sits down with Lauren Domagas, author and independent publisher of Songs for Mahalia, to unpack the moment traditional publishing uncertainty became a clear invitation to self-publish with confidence. We talk about what Lauren learned pitching at the San Francisco Writers Confe...
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